Flint and Feather

by Charlotte Gray

  Slowly the infection receded and, to Walter’s immense relief, Pauline’s temperature dropped and she regained consciousness. She looked dreadful: her beautiful thick brown hair was gone, and her face resembled a road map because the outlines of the erysipelas patches were still visible. Moreover, the Johnson–McRaye partnership was in serious financial difficulties: their six-week run had not yielded enough to cover the costs of a long convalescence. For the next few months, the two recitalists lay low. It is probable that Pauline was admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario, run by a Roman Catholic order of nuns. A letter to Nurse Elizabeth King has survived, written by Pauline after she had been discharged from this hospital: “I am feeling very well and my face is all right so far. I do hope it will continue to improve,” she scribbled in an uncharacteristically shaky, backward-sloping script. “I am sure the Reverend Mother will be pleased that I am better. So please tell her. And also remember me to Sister Sophia and Miss Ferguson. I want to thank you once more my dear girl for all your attention and kindness to me. With every wish for your happiness and success in which Mr. McRaye joins (he says he would like to hold your hand). I am, yours faithfully, E. Pauline Johnson.”

  By the time this letter was written, Pauline was already back on the road, desperately trying to cover her debts. She had acquired a wig to cover her bald scalp. From now on, she never appeared in public without makeup to camouflage the ravages to her face; jars of rouge, Na-Dru-Co Theatrical Cold Cream and Miner’s Theatrical Blending Powder (No. 12, “Gypsy,” or No. 7, “Flesh”) were staples of her dressing case. On February 7, only six weeks after her collapse in Orillia, she performed in London, Ontario. From there she travelled to Blyth and then to Kingsville, on the shores of Lake Erie, where she wrote the letter to Nurse King. “We had a delightful audience at Blyth,” she told Miss King. “They laughed at everything and I quite enjoyed working myself.” She did not report on her partner’s performance; as a critic wrote around this time, “Mr. McRaye can hardly be placed in the same class as his clever companion.” But Walter had stuck with her when she was close to death, and he now fussed around her as she recovered her strength. He had earned a place at her side.

  With a new partner in place, Pauline ached to return to the West. As Walter once observed, “Because of her lineage and love of the unconventional, [Pauline] seemed a very part of…the romance of the frontier [and] the old Western spirit of freedom and democracy.” More practically, the West had always proved more lucrative for Pauline, and more inclined to welcome the Mohawk poet with Mayfair manners. By May 1902, she and Walter were in Northern Ontario, stopping off to give a show at each little railway town. At the remote mining settlement of Copper Cliff (rarely visited by entertainers), they stayed with “Kit” Coleman, a clever young writer for the Toronto Mail and Empire who had recently taken the rash step of marrying a physician employed by one of the big mining operations around Sudbury. Kit now spent her days breathing sulphur fumes on a landscape blasted by mines and smelters. Thrilled by these emissaries from sophisticated Southern Ontario, Kit gave them a glowing review. (She also tried to present them with a bouquet of red roses, but the roses wilted to dark brown in the sulphurous air.) She described Pauline as a “splendid Mohawk girl” and “a genius,” and Walter as “par excellence, the best reader of dainty and clear poems I have ever heard…He is a true artist.” Pauline and Walter then travelled on to Winnipeg, where Pauline invited a few old friends, including a reporter, to visit her at the Leland Hotel. She spoke about her hair loss with wry candour. The reporter wrote, “Though traces of her recent severe illness are noticeable, she is fast regaining strength. A friend asked how she managed to dress for the stage with such shortly cropped tresses. ‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ she replied, ‘when reciting in Mohawk costume, I wear a wig, but it bothers me, seeming to irritate my head. When I don evening dress, I imitate the chorus girls and wear a large hat which people say is very becoming, and no one suspects the tragedy underneath.’”

  But off stage, Pauline remained horribly self-conscious about her looks. She had received a formal invitation from the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories and his wife, Madame Henriette Forget. Like Pauline, Madame Forget had been a contributor

  In late 1902, Pauline’s hah was still short after the bout of erysipelas, and her face was often clouded with fatigue.

  to Lady Aberdeen’s publication The Women of Canada; like Pauline, Indian blood ran in her veins. Pauline appreciated Madame Forget’s kindness but was filled with dread: “’They’ are graciously offering their ‘patronage’ for our performance [in the city] and I am to be a guest at Government House while in Regina,” Pauline wrote to a friend. “Imagine—poor me dining with my scarred face and cropped hair. Is it not awful?”

  With each successive stop on the CPR line, however, Pauline’s health and looks improved. Soon she felt well enough to write as well as perform. And on July 4, a brutal rainstorm provided her with the kind of material that made a great dispatch for the Toronto Globe. Two bridges across the Bow River were completely washed out, which brought one eastbound and two westbound transcontinental trains to a grinding halt. The CPR decided it should take drastic measures to entertain a crowd of over 600 passengers which included Japanese students, British aristocrats and a bunch of Doukhobor, Chinese, Galician, Swedish, Italian and British immigrants. So it ordered its locomotive drivers to move the trains to Gleichen, in the heart of the Blackfoot Indian reserve, where they would remain until the track was repaired. Pauline grabbed the chance to write up an account of a prairie Indian band, in which she could cast them in a positive light and herself as “One of Them”:

  The Indians made a good thing out of the C.P.R. mishaps, for the tourists hired horses from them at “a dollar a ride” and even the tenderfoot would vault into the Mexican saddle and ride away across the plain…Only one lamentable accident occurred, in the evening, when we had baseball and horse races. In the latter a fine grey pony, the property of a splendidly handsome blanket and buckskin-clad Blackfoot, plunged into a badger hole, fell, and instantly expired with a broken neck.

  And just here is time to relate an aspersion frequently laid upon our wilder Indian tribes of the great west. The prejudiced white man will tell you that the Indians will eat anything animal that dies of disease, unclean portions of meat, etc. The detractors of the Redman, and there were plenty of them aboard, assured the crowd that “the Indians will have a great pow-wow, and the feast of the dead horse” over the unlucky animal that lay near the track. But the next morning and the next night, and yet another morning came and waned, and the horse lay where it had fallen, and the Blackfoot shook their heads when asked about a “feast.” A goodly collection was taken up for the owner which reward he deserved, as his steed had expired in making “a white man’s holiday.”

  This identical warrior exhibited great appreciation of class distinctions. A curious Chinaman came forth from his car, and a tourist asked the Blackfoot, “Is this your brother?” indicating the Mongolian. Such scorn and hauteur as the reply, “No” expressed, such a lifting of the red chin, and indignant glance. It amazed some, but I was proud of my colour cousin of the prairie, and of his fine old aristocratic red blood that has come down through the centuries to pulse in the conservative veins.

  Within two days, the Bow River bridges were repaired and the trains steamed out of the reserve. The next stage of this particular Johnson–McRaye trip was a tour of the little mining towns of the Kootenay region in the southeastern corner of British Columbia, a region sandwiched between the main CPR line to the north and the states of Montana, Idaho and Washington to the south. The Kootenay region consists of four mountain ranges running north–south like giant snowcapped farmer’s furrows, with long, fjord-like lakes between them. Only thirty years earlier, the sole occupants of this wilderness were about 500 Kootenay Indians, a few French-speaking fur traders and a handful of British remittance men. But between the years 1889 and 1892, five o
f the most productive mines that the world had ever seen were developed in the area. In 1887, the Silver King Mine was begun on Toad Mountain, outside Nelson. Two years later, rich deposits of silver, lead and zinc were found in what became the Ainsworth Mine, on Kootenay Lake. In 1891, the LeRoi goldmine at Rossland and the Payne lead mine at Sandon, above Slocan Lake, were developed. The greatest of them all, the Sullivan silver and lead mine at Kimberley, was begun in the Purcell Mountains in 1892.

  News of the gold and silver strikes touched off a mining boom. Burly hardrock miners, particularly from the United States, swarmed into the region to stake their claims in every creek and on every hillside in the area. The frenzy created instant shantytowns throughout the Kootenays: Rosebery, New Denver, Slocan City, Three Forks, Nashton, Argenta, Lardeau, Gerrard. Many of these settlements, such as Nakusp, on the Upper Arrow Lake, were accessible only by the steam-powered sternwheelers that plied the lakes and that needed only a foot of water beneath the keel and a wide enough channel to twist between the sandbars. Rudimentary muddy trails through primeval forest linked some of the other settlements. These trails hadn’t improved since they were vividly described back in 1862 by the British engineer Lieutenant Henry Palmer: “Slippery precipitous ascents and descents, fallen logs, overhanging branches, roots, rocks, turbid pools, and miles of deep mud.”

  Miners laboriously bagged the ore from most of the mines, then packed it out of the mountains on horseback along these trails. Shipping expenses ate up the profits of even the richest mines. But as the extent of the mineral deposits became established, railway companies realized there was money to be made. A race quickly developed between two of the great railroad men of the era: William Cornelius Van Horne, the American-born President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and his rival James Jerome Hill, the Canadian-born President of the American-owned Great Northern Railroad. Van Horne won the battle for control of water traffic when he took control of most of the sternwheelers on the rivers and lakes of the Kootenays. J. J. Hill, however, was determined to get a share of the branch lines linking the mines to the lake ports. And Van Horne was equally determined to keep out J. J. Hill’s “hungry hounds.”

  Suddenly there was not just a mining boom—there was also a railway war as Canada’s richest mining area became a battleground in the two companies’ larger struggle for continental supremacy. It was vicious; at one point, a brand-new CPR station in Sandon was hooked

  up to a GNR locomotive and hauled to oblivion. The engineers faced formidable obstacles as they planned routes for narrow-gauge track through steep mountain passes and along the old Kootenay Indian trails. The narrow valleys with high summits and heavy snowfalls were so treacherous that no one would venture along them in spring after noon. An avalanche that came down Reco Mountain into the Slocan Valley in the early 1890s, for example, had covered the track to a depth of 170 feet (52 metres) and took six years to melt completely. Yet the railway companies persisted, and by the turn of the century there was a complete, if disjointed, system of sternwheelers on the Arrow, Slocan, Trout and Kootenay lakes, linked by short rail lines to the CPR main line to the north at Revelstoke and to the GNR main line to the south at Rossland.

  The tangle of branch lines opened the Kootenays to every travelling singer, mesmerist, acting company, magician and recitalist who was busy criss-crossing the continent in this period. Pauline had heard from fellow artistes about the spectacular scenery, the demanding audiences and the perilous travel, and she looked forward to exploring the Kootenays for herself. In 1899, she had gotten as far as Fort Steele, at the junction of Wild Horse Creek and the Kootenay River. The Kootenays, though, were no place for a single woman to travel alone. But by 1902, she had Walter to ensure her safety, and to deal with the business side of the tour. According to Walter, Pauline’s fame was such that all he had to do was “send out a batch of postal cards announcing her coming, and committees would form and arrange evenings, glad of the opportunity.” So at Revelstoke they disembarked from the westbound CPR express and headed south.

  One of their first stops was Rossland, a town of 7,000 people ringed by high-producing mines with the characteristically whimsical names that prospectors always favour—the original LeRoi mineshaft, Centre Star, War Eagle, the Black Bear, White Bear, California Josie, Annie, Nickel Plate, Spitzee, Nick of Time, Iron Mask, Enterprise, Columbia-Kootenay, Jumbo. The Johnson–McRaye performance faced tough competition in a town like Rossland, which was linked by a daily train to Spokane. Touring vaudeville shows, prizefights and classic opera were regular events at the International Music Hall and the Opera

  The famous LeRoi mine on Rossland’s Toad Mountain, British Columbia, was one of the most productive mines during the Kootenays’ mining boom.

  House. Nevertheless, Pauline and Walter found a full house waiting for them in the Methodist Church hall and enjoyed a warm reception.

  The following day they climbed Toad Mountain to inspect the LeRoi Mine. The mine superintendent and his foreman greeted their celebrity guests enthusiastically, then guided them as they clambered down the narrow, dark shaft while loaded buckets clanged upwards on cables behind their backs. At the 300-foot level (just over 90 metres), they stopped to catch their breath, and two miners who had seen her show presented Pauline with pieces of gold ore from the rock face. She was much more excited by these nuggets than by the lengthy scientific lectures that Mr. Woodhouse, the superintendent, decided she needed. According to the Rossland Miner, he explained that “In amphorous minerals there is no trace of crystalline form or special characteristics of structure due to individual crystals, although inter-mittent deposits of the mass composing the mineral may give an occasional difference of hardness or texture.” She nodded agreeably, so he went on to advise her that “The majority of the solid amphorous minerals are the result of the gradual change from a gelatinous state or the rapid cooling from the melted condition.” Noticing an expression of some confusion on her face, he helpfully added that “The majority of them are the result of the alteration of pre-existing materials.” Pauline smiled sweetly and replied, “I guess so.”

  From Rossland, the Johnson-McRaye partnership went on to Nelson, Ainsworth, Kaslo, Lardeau, Ferguson and Kuskanook. There was far less competition for audiences at the more remote towns, but there were no facilities for women either. Pauline was the sole female in the dining room of the hotel at Gerrard, at the south end of Trout Lake. “We ate in a small room at a long table with oilcloth on it, and ‘Mobs,’ the proprietor, in his undershirt, cooking at the end of the room,” recalled Walter. “Pauline sat among the miners and prospectors, told them stories, listened to theirs, no one taking any notice of the unusual occurrence. The old-time miner had an innate chivalry that was particularly his own.”

  Any traveller would have revelled in the comforts of the CPR sternwheeler Moyie as it churned its way down Kootenay Lake,

  Pauline still projected the passion and power of her Indian narratives for her publicity photographs.

  announcing its imminent arrival at lakeshore settlements with its deep, resonant whistle. Up to 250 passengers could travel on the Moyie, the interior of which was designed with the same attention to detail as the CPR trains. In the spacious dining lounge, passengers ate clam chowder and stuffed wild goose from CPR-monographed china and silver plate while they gazed at a panorama of clear water and soaring mountains from the large windows. Pauline could retreat to the ladies’ saloon, with its burgundy crushed-velvet settees, lace curtains and thick carpeting.

  But Pauline even relished the more stressful moments. She was philosophical when mudslides or breakdowns threw Walter’s travel plans. “Much disappointment was expressed last evening,” reported The Kootenaian in July 1902, “when it was known that Miss Pauline Johnson and Walter MacRaye [sic] had missed connections and were unable to reach Kaslo in time for the performance, as arranged; however, the postponement was inevitable.” Pauline never complained about the smuts and hard wooden seats of the narrow-gauge ra
ilways, which inched their way up steep mountain tracks and over rickety trellis bridges to isolated mining camps. In these bleak, sweaty communities, she and Walter usually found a ready audience, who were happy to buy tickets at $1 each to watch them. Working in inhuman conditions and risking their lives for only $3.50 for a ten-hour day, most miners were starved not only for entertainment other than drinking and gambling, but also for a glimpse of a lady. In those instant mining settlements, there were usually about ten men for every woman—and she was likely to be a prostitute.

  Back in 1890, for example, Sandon Creek had been nothing more than a stream that gushed down a valley so narrow that the sun penetrated it for only about four hours on a summer’s day. Then a rich vein of galena (lead, silver and zinc) was discovered. By the time Pauline arrived there, the town of Sandon had twenty-nine hotels, twenty-eight saloons, three sawmills, three butcher shops, two breweries, two newspapers (the Paystreak and the Mining Review), several pool halls, a covered hockey arena, a population of 6,000, and fifty buildings in its red-light district employing about 115 whores. There were so many card sharks and professional gamblers that this inaccessible, gimcrack town kilometres from any big city was known as the “Monte Carlo of Canada.” Many a miner blew his grubstake on the infernal trio of “yellow liquor, green cloth and the women in red.” Yet Pauline cast her usual magic in Sandon Creek’s grimy little Miners’ Union Hall. Bristle-faced miners suppressed their wracking coughs so they could hear her bloodthirsty Indian ballads, her sentimental love poems and her witty jabs at mine owners’ arrogance. Afterwards, a shabby Englishman came up to the poet with tears in his eyes. He told her it was the first time in years he had seen a woman in evening dress.